The present invention relates to surgical components used in conjunction with a surgical navigation system. In particular, the present invention relates to a navigated instrument for guiding subsequent components during an orthopaedic surgical procedure.
Many surgical procedures are now performed with surgical navigation systems in which sensors detect tracking elements attached in known relationship to an object in the surgical suite such as a surgical instrument, implant, or patient body part. The sensor information is fed to a computer that then triangulates the three dimensional position of the tracking elements within the surgical navigation system coordinate system. Thus, the computer can resolve the position and orientation of the object and display the position and orientation for surgeon guidance. For example, the position and orientation can be shown superimposed on an image of the patient's anatomy obtained via X-ray, CT scan, ultrasound, or other imaging technology.
However, most orthopaedic surgical procedures are performed using conventional instruments in which the various components of the surgery are aligned mechanically by the surgeon by visualizing and/or palpating anatomic landmarks. During these procedures, orthopaedic components in the form of instruments to prepare a bone, provisional components to verify sizing, implant components and/or other suitable components are placed in a surgical site. These components often have position and orientation requirements for them to operate properly. For example, a bone cutting guide must be aligned on the bone in the proper orientation to guide a cutter to produce a cut surface in a desire location.